 | FRI, APR 10, 2020 | | | | Coronavirus: The treatment race continues; near a turnaround? | | | | While the number of U.S. deaths from the coronavirus continued to surge this week, public health officials offered some glimmer of hope: we could be near a turnaround in the outbreak. Researchers working on the University of Washington's widely cited IHME COVID-19 model updated their projections to show about 60,000 deaths in the United States by Aug. 4, down from 90,000 a week ago. Public officials warn that people shouldn't get complacent; now is the time to "double down" on mitigation efforts.
A reminder – we will be gathering healthcare leaders at the center of the fight against coronavirus for an interactive virtual event on May 12. New additions to the Healthy Returns agenda include Giovanni Caforio, chairman and CEO of Bristol Myers Squibb, Epic Systems founder and CEO Judith Faulkner, and Verily co-founder and chief medical officer Jessica Mega. Learn more and request an invitation at CNBCevents.com/healthyreturns.
| | The treatment race continues at an unprecedented clip | The news is coming fast and furious: every few days, a new development in the race for a treatment or vaccine for COVID-19. This week, Vir Biotechnology forged a partnership with GSK to develop antibody drugs for the disease, using the immune cells generated by people who've recovered from both COVID-19 and SARS. They aim to be in human trials in three to five months. Meanwhile, vaccine news as well: Inovio became the second company to begin human testing (after Moderna), and Pfizer and BioNTech set a goal for starting phase 1 by the end of April.
-Meg Tirrell | | | | Travel nurses race to New York and other coronavirus hot spots | Medical staffing firms are racing to fill expected holes at hospitals bracing for an unprecedented influx of patients with COVID-19 across the country. Aya Healthcare, one of the largest temporary healthcare staffing companies in the country, said it deployed 800 clinicians in less than three weeks to hospitals across the country. While hospitals typically allot three weeks for staffing companies to fill a position, April Hansen, an executive vice president at Aya, said hospitals have started requesting temporary staff within three days. Dan Weberg, head of clinical innovation at health care staffing firm Trusted Health, said the company has seen hundreds of jobs posted to the company's website in one day. In the last 30 days, it has seen three to four times more job postings compared to other months, he said.
-Noah Higgins-Dunn | | | | Patients with autoimmune diseases are facing critical shortages of hydroxychloroquine | As President Donald Trump has repeatedly and aggressively touted the drug as a potential cure for the novel coronavirus, hydroxychloroquine has been flying off the shelves at pharmacies. Some patients with autoimmune diseases have been taking the drug for years to keep their symptoms at bay, and they are running out due to the spike in demand. Their doctors are desperately advocating for an increase in supplies of the drug, noting that hydroxychloroquine is still an unproven treatment for COVID-19. "You're taking a medication from a patient where we know it can help, and giving it to a patient where we don't know if it works," said Dr. Isabelle Amigues, a rheumatologist based in Denver, Colorado.
-Chrissy Farr | | | | Empty hotels 'keep the lights on' by converting into coronavirus quarantines, emergency housing | Cash-strapped hotels across the country are finding ways to keep the lights on by converting themselves into coronavirus wards or temporary housing for the National Guard or exhausted doctors and nurses. The financial toll of the coronavirus pandemic for hotels is worse than during the 2008 financial crisis, according to industry executives and analysts. But now many have found solace in deals with city and state government that want to lease hotel rooms to be used for COVID-19 patients or to house first responders. "This is not the time that we're going to profit from anything. This is the time where we have to just charge enough in order for us to be able to keep our doors open," said the owner of a hotel in Salida, Colorado that rented rooms out to the National Guard.
-Will Feuer | | | | As Trump attacks, WHO warns against politicizing the virus | The World Health Organization is asking the United States and China for "honest leadership" on the COVID-19 pandemic, warning global leaders against politicizing the outbreak "if you don't want to have many more body bags." President Donald Trump criticized the international agency's response to the outbreak multiple times this week, saying the WHO "really called, I would say, every aspect of it wrong." He also threatened to withhold U.S. funding for the UN health agency. WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for unity and said the focus of all political parties should be to save their lives.
-Berkeley Lovelace Jr. | | Healthy Returns Virtual Summit | May 12, 2020
The path forward for the health care industry at a time of unprecedented challenges
CNBC presents a virtual event featuring top health care CEOs, technologists and investors, exploring the ways the most innovative companies are addressing the coronavirus crisis, and the lasting effects the crisis will have on the industry.
From vaccines and treatments, to new tech and processes, to modeling the financial impacts and effects on legacy and upstart health care companies, Healthy Returns will feature some of the most influential voices in health care.
Led by CNBC's anchors and reporters, Healthy Returns will hone in on the groundbreaking ideas that will help mitigate the global pandemic, and will transform the health care industry for years to come. | |
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